Following in the footsteps of Dominique Crenn and Jeff Banker, Brandon Jew of Bar Agricole takes his turn at the Fifth Floor tonight. Let’s chat.

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PL: What are your thoughts on the first year and a half or so of Bar Agricole?

BJ: All in all, I’m really happy with what we’re doing. The first couple months were a lot trial and error, but what kept us together was that we are all very passionate about what we do. It was nice to not have to worry about the other parts of the restaurant, since we have very competent people on the service side and at the bar. I only had to worry about what was going on in the kitchen. As the year has progressed, I wanted to take our food to be more consistent and still creative. I guess I’m always looking for the point at which everything comes together.

A big challenge — and we don’t really tell people this — is that our whole kitchen is organic and biodynamic. That whole line where menus say that they “use organic whenever possible” — that’s kind of a bunch of shit. There’s always the opportunity to use organic. It’s been a fun challenge, but a lot of things usually take time to get sourced.

How has the menu evolved?

I’m just trying to be an extension of the farms we use, but not so black and white. I still want to be that real farm-to-table restaurant where we’re expressing the talents of our farmers as much as our cooks. These are amazing farmers growing amazing things; we’re just trying to expand our creativity with those products more and more. It’s about the challenge of cooking very spontaneously every day. Our recipes aren’t developed on paper. Some are from tradition, but a lot are from experience, from tasting the raw ingredients.

That’s another thing. I’ve learned how different every year is. Not just the seasons, but the characteristics of each season. Like not having super rad tomatoes for the last two years. How do we make these ingredients shine? There are certain times where I don’t want to manipulate something, but sometimes it’s necessary.

What excites you about this Fifth Floor dinner?

One, Dave’s just been an awesome guy to meet along the way. The first time we met was at Cochon, then we started seeing each other at the farmers’ market. He came into the restaurant a couple times, and we’d shoot the shit. He’s a nice guy — and talented.

It’ll be fun to be in another kitchen and get his perspective on some Asian flavors. My whole motivation — in addition to working with Dave — is that a big part of cooking has always been my family and the power of food to bring people together and make people happy. Those things made me feel good about choosing this career.

How’d you come up with the menu items?

For me, part of cooking is continuing traditions and it’ll be fun to do some food to based on my Chinese background. I just thought of a couple of dishes we normally do at our family gatherings, and went from there. I have a lot of family here in San Francisco, so we usually have 40 people for Christmas and Thanksgiving. These are things that I gravitate towards on the table.